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On July 05 2013 17:36 xM(Z wrote:this thread must not die. - assume for the sake of future arguments that the universe (for now) is both probabilistic and deterministic, that once a probability is rolled its outcome becomes deterministic. - the issue: dice roll -> decision making -> action taking since the decision making is determined by the dice roll it's not even worth discussing so the issue becomes dice roll -> action taking. statements like don't say much about anything because Show nested quote +The role of consciousness in decision making is also being clarified: some thinkers have suggested that it mostly serves to cancel certain actions initiated by the unconscious . if consciousness cancels the decision made by the dice roll then it's correct to say we have free will?. also, if dice roll = action taking then it's correct to assume that consciousness doesn't exist? (sort of a human life vs other life form debate) since consciousness is a relatively new evolutionary development, it is to be expected that prior to it, a dice roll would be equivalent with an action taken and also that residual action taking without its involvement would to be expected today. but think of the times when we will be pure consciousness and there will be no action determined by a dice roll.
You are misrepresenting those quotes. Consciousness cancelling decisions by unconscious processes is just another process with the same basic properties. It is just a controller process that is designed to catch errors created by the baser process.
Analogy would be, that you have old machine that produces toys, but sometimes it malfunctions and it produces a toxic goo. It is cheaper for you to create a system on top of the existing machine that just detects the goo and removes it from the assembly line instead of redesigning the old machine. Same goes in case of consciousness. Evolution is one big patchwork of fixes applied to even older fixes. It is easier to just patch overseer (consciousness) over the older systems to achieve the required cognitive goals instead of "evolving" whole new system.
The ability of consciousness to cancel unconscious decisions is still based on the same physical process as those unconscious processes. It in no way introduces free will, it is still deterministic/probabilistic in the same way as the unconscious processes.
To note, when I am talking about free will here I mean the common misconception of free will. The one where you have ability to decide differently in the same circumstances. Free will in the sense that your decisions are your own (the legalistic one) of course exists.
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On July 05 2013 20:40 MiraMax wrote:
Either the choices are yours to make (in constant interaction with your environment, of course) or not (maybe you are a strong eliminitivist about intentionality). In any case, determinism or indeterminism should change nothing about your judgement.
the whole point is that control over your judgement is an illusion. Even brain scans show that you make choices 6-7 sec before you realize you did. If your judgment is just a natural phenomenon happening in a deterministic or probabilistic manner, talking about moral responsibility is absurd. That doesn't mean we should close prisons and free everyone inside, prisons exist (or should exist) because they are useful, not because the moral majority wants to punish the immoral minority.
"choice", "free will" along with a lot of other words have historically inherited the suggestion of metaphysical depth. If we are just wheels in a cosmic clock then the concept of moral responsibility is just ridiculous. Consider the notion of creating a program that kills your hardware and then holding it "morally" responsible even if it could not possibly do anything else.
Compatibilists always fail to address the standard argument against free will in a way that satisfies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_argument_against_free_will
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On July 05 2013 21:26 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2013 17:36 xM(Z wrote:this thread must not die. - assume for the sake of future arguments that the universe (for now) is both probabilistic and deterministic, that once a probability is rolled its outcome becomes deterministic. - the issue: dice roll -> decision making -> action taking since the decision making is determined by the dice roll it's not even worth discussing so the issue becomes dice roll -> action taking. statements like Brain Scans Can Reveal Your Decisions 7 Seconds Before You “Decide” don't say much about anything because The role of consciousness in decision making is also being clarified: some thinkers have suggested that it mostly serves to cancel certain actions initiated by the unconscious . if consciousness cancels the decision made by the dice roll then it's correct to say we have free will?. also, if dice roll = action taking then it's correct to assume that consciousness doesn't exist? (sort of a human life vs other life form debate) since consciousness is a relatively new evolutionary development, it is to be expected that prior to it, a dice roll would be equivalent with an action taken and also that residual action taking without its involvement would to be expected today. but think of the times when we will be pure consciousness and there will be no action determined by a dice roll. You are misrepresenting those quotes. Consciousness cancelling decisions by unconscious processes is just another process with the same basic properties. It is just a controller process that is designed to catch errors created by the baser process. Analogy would be, that you have old machine that produces toys, but sometimes it malfunctions and it produces a toxic goo. It is cheaper for you to create a system on top of the existing machine that just detects the goo and removes it from the assembly line instead of redesigning the old machine. Same goes in case of consciousness. Evolution is one big patchwork of fixes applied to even older fixes. It is easier to just patch overseer (consciousness) over the older systems to achieve the required cognitive goals instead of "evolving" whole new system. The ability of consciousness to cancel unconscious decisions is still based on the same physical process as those unconscious processes. It in no way introduces free will, it is still deterministic/probabilistic in the same way as the unconscious processes. To note, when I am talking about free will here I mean the common misconception of free will. The one where you have ability to decide differently in the same circumstances. Free will in the sense that your decisions are your own (the legalistic one) of course exists.
I'm glad you posted this, I wouldn't know where to begin
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On July 05 2013 19:23 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2013 17:36 xM(Z wrote:
if consciousness cancels the decision made by the dice roll then it's correct to say we have free will?.
also, if dice roll = action taking then it's correct to assume that consciousness doesn't exist? (sort of a human life vs other life form debate)
If you believe that consciousness is physical (like the vast majority of people in this topic), it doesn't have any impact on free will. Let's say there's a "dice roll" decision made, and your consciousness cancels it. Why did you cancel it? Depends on the action, but any person has a reason for any decision, and that reason comes from their brain. Maybe they have tried the other thing before and it didn't work, maybe they are scared of the possible outcomes etc... anything should still be perfectly deterministic.
then you'd have dualism between 2 physicalities, you and the environment with consciousness being some sort of feedback agent between those two.
1) why would that process unfold?, why is the dice being rolled in the first place? - because it just is (there is just no other answer as of yet, unless you believe in God and stuff)
2) to be able to break that subconscious > conscious > environment chain loop, somewhere along the way consciousness has to tell the environment to go fuck himself. for you to accept that as true, the consciousness needs to break the laws of what you call physical?, to change them?, to create new ones?; or you would just simply state that it happened because everything is physical, that consciousness gained access to a higher physical law or something? 
physics is concepts in diapers.
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On July 05 2013 20:34 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2013 20:21 Rassy wrote:
"I don't see how fatalism should follow even in a fully deterministic universe nor how this should compromise my or anyone's moral responsibility"
Well if the universe is 100% deterministic there is no moral responsibility since there are no choises. Everything is predetermined.
Or do i see this to simplistic?, I read something about the universe beeing deterministic can still allow for free will but to me it made no sense. Maybe someone could explain.
Even without "free will", moral still matters. Indeed, no one is actually making any choices, since any choice they make is based on their history. However, people often make choices based on moral. We decide not to do things because of the consequences, like going to jail. It's not free will, we are conditioned for this, but it will only work as long as we consider ourselves responsible for it. It's hard to explain, but the point is that even if there is no FREE will, you're still responsible for your decisions. The reason I decide not to kill someone could be because I was taught it's wrong to kill people. This is deterministic, if I was never told this, maybe I WOULD kill someone. But the fact that I learned it was wrong decided my future choice, which lead to a better future, so it's important that I learned it and the fact that I'm held responsible affects my future choices.
what actually affects your choice is that you are going to be in a world of pain if you break society's rules, society also puts down dogs with rabies without necessarily holding the dogs morally responsible for their actions.
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On July 05 2013 21:23 NukeD wrote:
^ thats a long way of saying absolutelly nothing.
I'm sorry do I need your permission to post a thought or Idea? Yea.. I didn't think so. You may be surprised to hear this, but I don't need the approval of a disrespectful jerk like you.
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On July 05 2013 21:33 lebowskiguy wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2013 20:40 MiraMax wrote:
Either the choices are yours to make (in constant interaction with your environment, of course) or not (maybe you are a strong eliminitivist about intentionality). In any case, determinism or indeterminism should change nothing about your judgement.
the whole point is that control over your judgement is an illusion. Even brain scans show that you make choices 6-7 sec before you realize you did. If your judgment is just a natural phenomenon happening in a deterministic or probabilistic manner, talking about moral responsibility is absurd. That doesn't mean we should close prisons and free everyone inside, prisons exist (or should exist) because they are useful, not because the moral majority wants to punish the immoral minority. "choice", "free will" along with a lot of other words have historically inherited the suggestion of metaphysical depth. If we are just wheels in a cosmic clock then the concept of moral responsibility is just ridiculous. Consider the notion of creating a program that kills your hardware and then holding it "morally" responsible even if it could not possibly do anything else. Compatibilists always fail to address the standard argument against free will in a way that satisfies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_argument_against_free_will
You simply claiming that moral responsibility becomes ridiculous doesn't make it so. How exactly would you go about showing that control over my judgment is an illusion? Could you devise a coherent scenario in which moral responsibility ever was warranted? Given your defintions I very much doubt it. But then you just seem to negate choice right away, irrespective of however the world was structured and we would need to have a completely different discussion.
Furthermore, compatibilist think they conclusively answered the standard argument. It's by far the mainstream view among philosophers of the mind (people whose job it is to think about these things), but I guess they all just didn't hear about your killer argument, right!?
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On July 05 2013 20:21 Rassy wrote:
"I don't see how fatalism should follow even in a fully deterministic universe nor how this should compromise my or anyone's moral responsibility"
Well if the universe is 100% deterministic there is no moral responsibility since there are no choises. Everything is predetermined.
Or do i see this to simplistic?, I read something about the universe beeing deterministic can still allow for free will but to me it made no sense. Maybe someone could explain.
That is because you might be deterministic, but it is still you who took the action (for example to murder someone). You being deterministic does not change the fact that you (the entity that is your body) by internal (not externally coerced) processes undertook an action. You are still making decisions based on your internal state and external input, it is just that those decisions are theoretically predictable. Determinism does not take away moral responsibility and not even free will (the reasonable definition of one). The only thing it takes away from you is possibility that you will in the absolutely same set of circumstances make different decision than the one you made. But what would that even mean ? That is why the common concept of free will is absolutely nonsensical. What would that even mean to take different action in the same circumstances ? How could that be, the only way for it to happen is to throw some kind of magical dice, but how is that free will.
Why all of this is such an issue for our minds to process is because we have illusion of free decision-making. That is because we have absolutely no introspection into the actual workings of our minds (since that is evolutionarily not necessary and would cause more problems than benefits). But our conscious mind still wants to have consistent model of "self" and thus illusion of nearly absolute control is born.
On July 05 2013 20:21 Rassy wrote:
"since consciousness is a relatively new evolutionary development, it is to be expected that prior to it, a dice roll would be equivalent with an action taken "
Hmm this is kinda interesting,consciousness seems to be a relativly new development and it seems to still devellop.
Apearently (i have not tried this myself but i read about this theory) if you study old texts from the greek and roman you can see that they have a less develloped consciousness, based on how they are writing. It is more descriptive of events and it contains less personal experiences with the notion of a self.(again, i am no expert on this so i might be wrong)
That seems to be bogus, that can be easily explained by different styles of writing, etc. Consciousness is newer in evolutionary terms, but it is very old compared to human civilization.
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On July 05 2013 21:26 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2013 17:36 xM(Z wrote:this thread must not die. - assume for the sake of future arguments that the universe (for now) is both probabilistic and deterministic, that once a probability is rolled its outcome becomes deterministic. - the issue: dice roll -> decision making -> action taking since the decision making is determined by the dice roll it's not even worth discussing so the issue becomes dice roll -> action taking. statements like Brain Scans Can Reveal Your Decisions 7 Seconds Before You “Decide” don't say much about anything because The role of consciousness in decision making is also being clarified: some thinkers have suggested that it mostly serves to cancel certain actions initiated by the unconscious . if consciousness cancels the decision made by the dice roll then it's correct to say we have free will?. also, if dice roll = action taking then it's correct to assume that consciousness doesn't exist? (sort of a human life vs other life form debate) since consciousness is a relatively new evolutionary development, it is to be expected that prior to it, a dice roll would be equivalent with an action taken and also that residual action taking without its involvement would to be expected today. but think of the times when we will be pure consciousness and there will be no action determined by a dice roll. You are misrepresenting those quotes. Consciousness cancelling decisions by unconscious processes is just another process with the same basic properties. It is just a controller process that is designed to catch errors created by the baser process. Analogy would be, that you have old machine that produces toys, but sometimes it malfunctions and it produces a toxic goo. It is cheaper for you to create a system on top of the existing machine that just detects the goo and removes it from the assembly line instead of redesigning the old machine. Same goes in case of consciousness. Evolution is one big patchwork of fixes applied to even older fixes. It is easier to just patch overseer (consciousness) over the older systems to achieve the required cognitive goals instead of "evolving" whole new system. The ability of consciousness to cancel unconscious decisions is still based on the same physical process as those unconscious processes. It in no way introduces free will, it is still deterministic/probabilistic in the same way as the unconscious processes. To note, when I am talking about free will here I mean the common misconception of free will. The one where you have ability to decide differently in the same circumstances. Free will in the sense that your decisions are your own (the legalistic one) of course exists.
your analogy implies a goal. as in, you want your machine to remove goo.
can you then tell me what goal evolution might have?, why does it do patches?. then and only then it will make sense.
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On July 05 2013 21:33 lebowskiguy wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2013 20:40 MiraMax wrote:
Either the choices are yours to make (in constant interaction with your environment, of course) or not (maybe you are a strong eliminitivist about intentionality). In any case, determinism or indeterminism should change nothing about your judgement.
the whole point is that control over your judgement is an illusion. Even brain scans show that you make choices 6-7 sec before you realize you did. If your judgment is just a natural phenomenon happening in a deterministic or probabilistic manner, talking about moral responsibility is absurd. That doesn't mean we should close prisons and free everyone inside, prisons exist (or should exist) because they are useful, not because the moral majority wants to punish the immoral minority. "choice", "free will" along with a lot of other words have historically inherited the suggestion of metaphysical depth. If we are just wheels in a cosmic clock then the concept of moral responsibility is just ridiculous. Consider the notion of creating a program that kills your hardware and then holding it "morally" responsible even if it could not possibly do anything else. Compatibilists always fail to address the standard argument against free will in a way that satisfies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_argument_against_free_will
Moral responsibility is a practical term for use in discussing human problems. When someone does something immoral voluntarily we say he has moral responsibility and that he needs to face consequences. That is just a way to avoid describing all the complex stuff that is actually hidden behind the concept. It is an useful concept in solving everyday problems, and it is a very real concept as it is based on biology, so saying there is no such thing is nonsensical as there is such a thing in the same vein as there is such a thing as sexual drive.
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can evolution itself be free will?
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On July 05 2013 21:46 MiraMax wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2013 21:33 lebowskiguy wrote:On July 05 2013 20:40 MiraMax wrote:
Either the choices are yours to make (in constant interaction with your environment, of course) or not (maybe you are a strong eliminitivist about intentionality). In any case, determinism or indeterminism should change nothing about your judgement.
the whole point is that control over your judgement is an illusion. Even brain scans show that you make choices 6-7 sec before you realize you did. If your judgment is just a natural phenomenon happening in a deterministic or probabilistic manner, talking about moral responsibility is absurd. That doesn't mean we should close prisons and free everyone inside, prisons exist (or should exist) because they are useful, not because the moral majority wants to punish the immoral minority. "choice", "free will" along with a lot of other words have historically inherited the suggestion of metaphysical depth. If we are just wheels in a cosmic clock then the concept of moral responsibility is just ridiculous. Consider the notion of creating a program that kills your hardware and then holding it "morally" responsible even if it could not possibly do anything else. Compatibilists always fail to address the standard argument against free will in a way that satisfies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_argument_against_free_will You simply claiming that moral responsibility becomes ridiculous doesn't make it so. How exactly would you go about showing that control over my judgment is an illusion? Could you devise a coherent scenario in which moral responsibility ever was warranted? Given your defintions I very much doubt it. But then you just seem to negate choice right away, irrespective of however the world was structured and we would need to have a completely different discussion. Furthermore, compatibilist think they conclusively answered the standard argument. It's by far the mainstream view among philosophers of the mind (people whose job it is to think about these things), but I guess they all just didn't hear about your killer argument, right!?
oh so your pov is mainstream therefore it has to be true? Do you really want to get into a name dropping fest?
Maybe you could start by providing a sufficient answer for the standard argument against free will instead of saying others have provided it; also please don't take this personally and get angry and do personal attacks because then the discussion will clearly deteriorate.
On the judgement/illusion question:
Isn't the fact that your conscious self realizes the decision after you have made it (about 7sec) a hint for you that you don't actually control it? Unless you put metaphysics into the equation then your brain is just another part of the universe and it obeys it's laws...
Could I devise a coherent scenario in which moral responsibility is warranted? I genuinely only try to understand the way things around me work, I don't care too much about the necessity of pointing the moral finger on people. If there is no room for moral responsibility in this world then so be it.
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On July 05 2013 21:52 xM(Z wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2013 21:26 mcc wrote:On July 05 2013 17:36 xM(Z wrote:this thread must not die. - assume for the sake of future arguments that the universe (for now) is both probabilistic and deterministic, that once a probability is rolled its outcome becomes deterministic. - the issue: dice roll -> decision making -> action taking since the decision making is determined by the dice roll it's not even worth discussing so the issue becomes dice roll -> action taking. statements like Brain Scans Can Reveal Your Decisions 7 Seconds Before You “Decide” don't say much about anything because The role of consciousness in decision making is also being clarified: some thinkers have suggested that it mostly serves to cancel certain actions initiated by the unconscious . if consciousness cancels the decision made by the dice roll then it's correct to say we have free will?. also, if dice roll = action taking then it's correct to assume that consciousness doesn't exist? (sort of a human life vs other life form debate) since consciousness is a relatively new evolutionary development, it is to be expected that prior to it, a dice roll would be equivalent with an action taken and also that residual action taking without its involvement would to be expected today. but think of the times when we will be pure consciousness and there will be no action determined by a dice roll. You are misrepresenting those quotes. Consciousness cancelling decisions by unconscious processes is just another process with the same basic properties. It is just a controller process that is designed to catch errors created by the baser process. Analogy would be, that you have old machine that produces toys, but sometimes it malfunctions and it produces a toxic goo. It is cheaper for you to create a system on top of the existing machine that just detects the goo and removes it from the assembly line instead of redesigning the old machine. Same goes in case of consciousness. Evolution is one big patchwork of fixes applied to even older fixes. It is easier to just patch overseer (consciousness) over the older systems to achieve the required cognitive goals instead of "evolving" whole new system. The ability of consciousness to cancel unconscious decisions is still based on the same physical process as those unconscious processes. It in no way introduces free will, it is still deterministic/probabilistic in the same way as the unconscious processes. To note, when I am talking about free will here I mean the common misconception of free will. The one where you have ability to decide differently in the same circumstances. Free will in the sense that your decisions are your own (the legalistic one) of course exists. your analogy implies a goal. as in, you want your machine to remove goo. can you then tell me what goal evolution might have?, why does it do patches?. then and only then it will make sense.
First, you are again not putting any effort into actually understanding my point. Point of that analogy was not in the part that you decided to concentrate on, but in the fact that consciousness is just another chain in the process of decision-making that is in no way qualitatively different than the other parts. Try to understand that when person makes an analogy, not all details of that analogy need to fit the original scenario, just the relevant ones. That is the point of analogy and you completely missed that with your unrelated tangent about goals. Not even mentioning that you completely ignored my non-analogy argument that stands on its own without analogy and I used that analogy just to illustrate it.
But I will address also your tangent. Evolution has a "goal", and here I am talking in a very abstract sense. The "goal" of evolution is to adapt a species to its environment. Consciousness fills specific purpose in that goal. When talking about evolution we often anthropomorphize it to make the communication easier, and there is nothing wrong with it as long as what we say can still be communicated without said anthropomorphic shortcut and still be valid. If you have issue with my use of it here, please point out where did my anthropomorphic account became inconsistent with the technical description that is behind it.
On July 05 2013 22:01 xM(Z wrote:
can evolution itself be free will?
No.
Mostly because that question is meaningless.
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On July 05 2013 21:58 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2013 21:33 lebowskiguy wrote:On July 05 2013 20:40 MiraMax wrote:
Either the choices are yours to make (in constant interaction with your environment, of course) or not (maybe you are a strong eliminitivist about intentionality). In any case, determinism or indeterminism should change nothing about your judgement.
the whole point is that control over your judgement is an illusion. Even brain scans show that you make choices 6-7 sec before you realize you did. If your judgment is just a natural phenomenon happening in a deterministic or probabilistic manner, talking about moral responsibility is absurd. That doesn't mean we should close prisons and free everyone inside, prisons exist (or should exist) because they are useful, not because the moral majority wants to punish the immoral minority. "choice", "free will" along with a lot of other words have historically inherited the suggestion of metaphysical depth. If we are just wheels in a cosmic clock then the concept of moral responsibility is just ridiculous. Consider the notion of creating a program that kills your hardware and then holding it "morally" responsible even if it could not possibly do anything else. Compatibilists always fail to address the standard argument against free will in a way that satisfies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_argument_against_free_will Moral responsibility is a practical term for use in discussing human problems. When someone does something immoral voluntarily we say he has moral responsibility and that he needs to face consequences. That is just a way to avoid describing all the complex stuff that is actually hidden behind the concept. It is an useful concept in solving everyday problems, and it is a very real concept as it is based on biology, so saying there is no such thing is nonsensical as there is such a thing in the same vein as there is such a thing as sexual drive.
my point is that we don't actually need it. I understand how it could be useful, but I think you can put a man in jail without condemning him morally, without trying to make him feel sinful or guilty. Every man always follows the course of action that he subconsciously or consciously considers the best at the given time. Some people become killers given the circumstances and that will put them into our jails to prevent them from doing it again or to warn others.
Nietzsche mainly attributes the popularity of the concept of free will/ moral responsibility/sin to Christianity's influence in the western world
edit: also please explain how moral responsibility is a concept based on biology because I can't see a way it is. O_o
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On July 05 2013 22:01 xM(Z wrote:
can evolution itself be free will?
I don't really understand where you want to take the concept of free will at this point, you're starting to use it like a completely different word and one has to wonder if there isn't a better term for what you're discussing now.
Free will, in philosophy, means:
"the doctrine that the conduct of human beings expresses personal choice and is not simply determined by physical or divine forces."
I don't see how that's compatible with evolution, changes introduced in organisms genome by random mutations over hundreds of thousands of years.
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On July 05 2013 21:52 xM(Z wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2013 21:26 mcc wrote:On July 05 2013 17:36 xM(Z wrote:this thread must not die. - assume for the sake of future arguments that the universe (for now) is both probabilistic and deterministic, that once a probability is rolled its outcome becomes deterministic. - the issue: dice roll -> decision making -> action taking since the decision making is determined by the dice roll it's not even worth discussing so the issue becomes dice roll -> action taking. statements like Brain Scans Can Reveal Your Decisions 7 Seconds Before You “Decide” don't say much about anything because The role of consciousness in decision making is also being clarified: some thinkers have suggested that it mostly serves to cancel certain actions initiated by the unconscious . if consciousness cancels the decision made by the dice roll then it's correct to say we have free will?. also, if dice roll = action taking then it's correct to assume that consciousness doesn't exist? (sort of a human life vs other life form debate) since consciousness is a relatively new evolutionary development, it is to be expected that prior to it, a dice roll would be equivalent with an action taken and also that residual action taking without its involvement would to be expected today. but think of the times when we will be pure consciousness and there will be no action determined by a dice roll. You are misrepresenting those quotes. Consciousness cancelling decisions by unconscious processes is just another process with the same basic properties. It is just a controller process that is designed to catch errors created by the baser process. Analogy would be, that you have old machine that produces toys, but sometimes it malfunctions and it produces a toxic goo. It is cheaper for you to create a system on top of the existing machine that just detects the goo and removes it from the assembly line instead of redesigning the old machine. Same goes in case of consciousness. Evolution is one big patchwork of fixes applied to even older fixes. It is easier to just patch overseer (consciousness) over the older systems to achieve the required cognitive goals instead of "evolving" whole new system. The ability of consciousness to cancel unconscious decisions is still based on the same physical process as those unconscious processes. It in no way introduces free will, it is still deterministic/probabilistic in the same way as the unconscious processes. To note, when I am talking about free will here I mean the common misconception of free will. The one where you have ability to decide differently in the same circumstances. Free will in the sense that your decisions are your own (the legalistic one) of course exists. your analogy implies a goal. as in, you want your machine to remove goo. can you then tell me what goal evolution might have?, why does it do patches?. then and only then it will make sense.
You're not addressing the point of his analogy, but if are really asking that, no, evolution doesn't have a goal in the sense you are trying to say. But constant randoms mutations (patches) over millions of years have left us (and every other animals) with an incredible number of those patches. Everything after that is basic natural selection. Fish can breath under water because all the fish that couldn't are dead.
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On July 05 2013 22:26 lebowskiguy wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2013 21:58 mcc wrote:On July 05 2013 21:33 lebowskiguy wrote:On July 05 2013 20:40 MiraMax wrote:
Either the choices are yours to make (in constant interaction with your environment, of course) or not (maybe you are a strong eliminitivist about intentionality). In any case, determinism or indeterminism should change nothing about your judgement.
the whole point is that control over your judgement is an illusion. Even brain scans show that you make choices 6-7 sec before you realize you did. If your judgment is just a natural phenomenon happening in a deterministic or probabilistic manner, talking about moral responsibility is absurd. That doesn't mean we should close prisons and free everyone inside, prisons exist (or should exist) because they are useful, not because the moral majority wants to punish the immoral minority. "choice", "free will" along with a lot of other words have historically inherited the suggestion of metaphysical depth. If we are just wheels in a cosmic clock then the concept of moral responsibility is just ridiculous. Consider the notion of creating a program that kills your hardware and then holding it "morally" responsible even if it could not possibly do anything else. Compatibilists always fail to address the standard argument against free will in a way that satisfies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_argument_against_free_will Moral responsibility is a practical term for use in discussing human problems. When someone does something immoral voluntarily we say he has moral responsibility and that he needs to face consequences. That is just a way to avoid describing all the complex stuff that is actually hidden behind the concept. It is an useful concept in solving everyday problems, and it is a very real concept as it is based on biology, so saying there is no such thing is nonsensical as there is such a thing in the same vein as there is such a thing as sexual drive. my point is that we don't actually need it. I understand how it could be useful, but I think you can put a man in jail without condemning him morally, without trying to make him feel sinful or guilty. Every man always follows the course of action that he subconsciously or consciously considers the best at the given time. Some people become killers given the circumstances and that will put them into our jails to prevent them from doing it again or to warn others. Nietzsche mainly attributes the popularity of the concept of free will/ moral responsibility/sin to Christianity's influence in the western world edit: also please explain how moral responsibility is a concept based on biology because I can't see a way it is. O_o
It is based on biology as we all feel, when someone does something wrong, moral outrage and it is not restricted by cultural borders, it is rather universal human feeling. The same goes for guilt. They are real existing feelings and fighting against the concepts is about as reasonable as fighting against windmills. You might argue that in some circumstances those feelings are not warranted or that we should not base our actions on them in some situations, but denying their existence is kind of unproductive. Of course there is no metaphysical moral responsibility, but there is the real human one.
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On July 05 2013 22:49 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2013 22:26 lebowskiguy wrote:On July 05 2013 21:58 mcc wrote:On July 05 2013 21:33 lebowskiguy wrote:On July 05 2013 20:40 MiraMax wrote:
Either the choices are yours to make (in constant interaction with your environment, of course) or not (maybe you are a strong eliminitivist about intentionality). In any case, determinism or indeterminism should change nothing about your judgement.
the whole point is that control over your judgement is an illusion. Even brain scans show that you make choices 6-7 sec before you realize you did. If your judgment is just a natural phenomenon happening in a deterministic or probabilistic manner, talking about moral responsibility is absurd. That doesn't mean we should close prisons and free everyone inside, prisons exist (or should exist) because they are useful, not because the moral majority wants to punish the immoral minority. "choice", "free will" along with a lot of other words have historically inherited the suggestion of metaphysical depth. If we are just wheels in a cosmic clock then the concept of moral responsibility is just ridiculous. Consider the notion of creating a program that kills your hardware and then holding it "morally" responsible even if it could not possibly do anything else. Compatibilists always fail to address the standard argument against free will in a way that satisfies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_argument_against_free_will Moral responsibility is a practical term for use in discussing human problems. When someone does something immoral voluntarily we say he has moral responsibility and that he needs to face consequences. That is just a way to avoid describing all the complex stuff that is actually hidden behind the concept. It is an useful concept in solving everyday problems, and it is a very real concept as it is based on biology, so saying there is no such thing is nonsensical as there is such a thing in the same vein as there is such a thing as sexual drive. my point is that we don't actually need it. I understand how it could be useful, but I think you can put a man in jail without condemning him morally, without trying to make him feel sinful or guilty. Every man always follows the course of action that he subconsciously or consciously considers the best at the given time. Some people become killers given the circumstances and that will put them into our jails to prevent them from doing it again or to warn others. Nietzsche mainly attributes the popularity of the concept of free will/ moral responsibility/sin to Christianity's influence in the western world edit: also please explain how moral responsibility is a concept based on biology because I can't see a way it is. O_o It is based on biology as we all feel, when someone does something wrong, moral outrage and it is not restricted by cultural borders, it is rather universal human feeling. The same goes for guilt. They are real existing feelings and fighting against the concepts is about as reasonable as fighting against windmills. You might argue that in some circumstances those feelings are not warranted or that we should not base our actions on them in some situations, but denying their existence is kind of unproductive. Of course there is no metaphysical moral responsibility, but there is the real human one. So we should put people in prison for doing something they couldn't help doing because it makes us feel better and satisfies an instinctual urge?
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On July 05 2013 22:19 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2013 21:52 xM(Z wrote:On July 05 2013 21:26 mcc wrote:On July 05 2013 17:36 xM(Z wrote:this thread must not die. - assume for the sake of future arguments that the universe (for now) is both probabilistic and deterministic, that once a probability is rolled its outcome becomes deterministic. - the issue: dice roll -> decision making -> action taking since the decision making is determined by the dice roll it's not even worth discussing so the issue becomes dice roll -> action taking. statements like Brain Scans Can Reveal Your Decisions 7 Seconds Before You “Decide” don't say much about anything because The role of consciousness in decision making is also being clarified: some thinkers have suggested that it mostly serves to cancel certain actions initiated by the unconscious . if consciousness cancels the decision made by the dice roll then it's correct to say we have free will?. also, if dice roll = action taking then it's correct to assume that consciousness doesn't exist? (sort of a human life vs other life form debate) since consciousness is a relatively new evolutionary development, it is to be expected that prior to it, a dice roll would be equivalent with an action taken and also that residual action taking without its involvement would to be expected today. but think of the times when we will be pure consciousness and there will be no action determined by a dice roll. You are misrepresenting those quotes. Consciousness cancelling decisions by unconscious processes is just another process with the same basic properties. It is just a controller process that is designed to catch errors created by the baser process. Analogy would be, that you have old machine that produces toys, but sometimes it malfunctions and it produces a toxic goo. It is cheaper for you to create a system on top of the existing machine that just detects the goo and removes it from the assembly line instead of redesigning the old machine. Same goes in case of consciousness. Evolution is one big patchwork of fixes applied to even older fixes. It is easier to just patch overseer (consciousness) over the older systems to achieve the required cognitive goals instead of "evolving" whole new system. The ability of consciousness to cancel unconscious decisions is still based on the same physical process as those unconscious processes. It in no way introduces free will, it is still deterministic/probabilistic in the same way as the unconscious processes. To note, when I am talking about free will here I mean the common misconception of free will. The one where you have ability to decide differently in the same circumstances. Free will in the sense that your decisions are your own (the legalistic one) of course exists. your analogy implies a goal. as in, you want your machine to remove goo. can you then tell me what goal evolution might have?, why does it do patches?. then and only then it will make sense. First, you are again not putting any effort into actually understanding my point. Point of that analogy was not in the part that you decided to concentrate on, but in the fact that consciousness is just another chain in the process of decision-making that is in no way qualitatively different than the other parts. Try to understand that when person makes an analogy, not all details of that analogy need to fit the original scenario, just the relevant ones. That is the point of analogy and you completely missed that with your unrelated tangent about goals. Not even mentioning that you completely ignored my non-analogy argument that stands on its own without analogy and I used that analogy just to illustrate it. But I will address also your tangent. Evolution has a "goal", and here I am talking in a very abstract sense. The "goal" of evolution is to adapt a species to its environment. Consciousness fills specific purpose in that goal. When talking about evolution we often anthropomorphize it to make the communication easier, and there is nothing wrong with it as long as what we say can still be communicated without said anthropomorphic shortcut and still be valid. If you have issue with my use of it here, please point out where did my anthropomorphic account became inconsistent with the technical description that is behind it. No. Mostly because that question is meaningless.
i addressed your point here, indirectly. at least it's how i see it since both of you were roughly on the same page
On July 05 2013 21:39 xM(Z wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2013 19:23 Tobberoth wrote:On July 05 2013 17:36 xM(Z wrote:
if consciousness cancels the decision made by the dice roll then it's correct to say we have free will?.
also, if dice roll = action taking then it's correct to assume that consciousness doesn't exist? (sort of a human life vs other life form debate)
If you believe that consciousness is physical (like the vast majority of people in this topic), it doesn't have any impact on free will. Let's say there's a "dice roll" decision made, and your consciousness cancels it. Why did you cancel it? Depends on the action, but any person has a reason for any decision, and that reason comes from their brain. Maybe they have tried the other thing before and it didn't work, maybe they are scared of the possible outcomes etc... anything should still be perfectly deterministic. then you'd have dualism between 2 physicalities, you and the environment with consciousness being some sort of feedback agent between those two. 1) why would that process unfold?, why is the dice being rolled in the first place? - because it just is (there is just no other answer as of yet, unless you believe in God and stuff) 2) to be able to break that subconscious > conscious > environment chain loop, somewhere along the way consciousness has to tell the environment to go fuck himself. for you to accept that as true, the consciousness needs to break the laws of what you call physical?, to change them?, to create new ones?; or you would just simply state that it happened because everything is physical, that consciousness gained access to a higher physical law or something? physics is concepts in diapers.
and your point seem to fit under 1) shit just happens. what else is there to say in that case?
can you answer 2)?. what would it take for free will to exist or for you to acknowledge it exists?
(and yes, i meant "Consciousness is newer in evolutionary terms")
ps: yes, i understood your point and it is valid. i'm just saying that it's incomplete.
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Australia1187 Posts
On July 05 2013 22:53 sc2superfan101 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2013 22:49 mcc wrote:On July 05 2013 22:26 lebowskiguy wrote:On July 05 2013 21:58 mcc wrote:On July 05 2013 21:33 lebowskiguy wrote:On July 05 2013 20:40 MiraMax wrote:
Either the choices are yours to make (in constant interaction with your environment, of course) or not (maybe you are a strong eliminitivist about intentionality). In any case, determinism or indeterminism should change nothing about your judgement.
the whole point is that control over your judgement is an illusion. Even brain scans show that you make choices 6-7 sec before you realize you did. If your judgment is just a natural phenomenon happening in a deterministic or probabilistic manner, talking about moral responsibility is absurd. That doesn't mean we should close prisons and free everyone inside, prisons exist (or should exist) because they are useful, not because the moral majority wants to punish the immoral minority. "choice", "free will" along with a lot of other words have historically inherited the suggestion of metaphysical depth. If we are just wheels in a cosmic clock then the concept of moral responsibility is just ridiculous. Consider the notion of creating a program that kills your hardware and then holding it "morally" responsible even if it could not possibly do anything else. Compatibilists always fail to address the standard argument against free will in a way that satisfies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_argument_against_free_will Moral responsibility is a practical term for use in discussing human problems. When someone does something immoral voluntarily we say he has moral responsibility and that he needs to face consequences. That is just a way to avoid describing all the complex stuff that is actually hidden behind the concept. It is an useful concept in solving everyday problems, and it is a very real concept as it is based on biology, so saying there is no such thing is nonsensical as there is such a thing in the same vein as there is such a thing as sexual drive. my point is that we don't actually need it. I understand how it could be useful, but I think you can put a man in jail without condemning him morally, without trying to make him feel sinful or guilty. Every man always follows the course of action that he subconsciously or consciously considers the best at the given time. Some people become killers given the circumstances and that will put them into our jails to prevent them from doing it again or to warn others. Nietzsche mainly attributes the popularity of the concept of free will/ moral responsibility/sin to Christianity's influence in the western world edit: also please explain how moral responsibility is a concept based on biology because I can't see a way it is. O_o It is based on biology as we all feel, when someone does something wrong, moral outrage and it is not restricted by cultural borders, it is rather universal human feeling. The same goes for guilt. They are real existing feelings and fighting against the concepts is about as reasonable as fighting against windmills. You might argue that in some circumstances those feelings are not warranted or that we should not base our actions on them in some situations, but denying their existence is kind of unproductive. Of course there is no metaphysical moral responsibility, but there is the real human one. So we should put people in prison for doing something they couldn't help doing because it makes us feel better and satisfies an instinctual urge?
We put people in prison because we consider them a danger or menace to society. And because it will discourage further transgressions of the same kind from society at large.
The crux is not all transgressions are imprisonable offences, and the way we decide which ones go to prison depend on codified rules that largely are based on 'instinctual urge'.
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